Epicodus

Epicodus

About

About

Epicodus is a full-time coding bootcamp offering 27-week courses, with the first 5 weeks offered for free, in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. Students learn everything they need to know to get a job as a web or mobile developer by learning Ruby and Rails, Front-End Development and Design, or C# and React. Each track includes Intro to Programming and JavaScript. At Epicodus, students learn how to build web applications from top to bottom with modern technologies and practices. More important than any particular skill, cohorts are taught how to think like a programmer, write good code, and pick up new languages and technologies in this fast-changing industry.

Every track also includes job search preparation for students; support and instruction in crafting resumes, cover letters, portfolios, and online presences. Career support staff meets one-on-one with every student to review and practice interviewing skills. After completing courses, students are placed in hand-selected internships with tech companies at no extra cost, allowing them to begin their job search with coding experience already on their resumes. To kick off their job search, graduates participate in a Demo Day where they present projects to local, hiring employers.

Courses

Courses

C# and React

Our focus is to prepare you for a career in the growing tech industry. Learning to code is a valuable skill that employers are constantly searching for in web development and design careers.
Each track begins with a 5-week Introduction to Programming course for beginners to learn the fundamentals of programming. After completing this course, you'll be able to build basic web pages and understand programming fundamentals. No coding experience is required, but computer proficiency is necessary.
Next, you'll spend five weeks learning C#. C# is developed by Microsoft and most commonly used with the .NET framework. Students who are well-versed in C# programming can use it to create client applications, database applications, distributed components, and much more.
Each track also includes a 5-week JavaScript course. After studying C# you'll jump into five weeks of JavaScript, the only programming language understood by all web browsers, making it the most common language for web and mobile development. Students who learn how to code in JavaScript will be able to create simple to complex web pages, add interactivity features to an existing site, and update pages quickly without reloading.
Next, you'll spend five weeks learning React. React is a JavaScript library used to create dynamic, interactive user interfaces. It allows a site to quickly update many different elements at once, without reloading the page. Since its development at Facebook in 2011 it has exploded in popularity.
Finally, you'll spend five weeks at an internship with a tech company. As part of Epicodus, local companies host students as full-time interns. It's a chance for students to learn about how development works in the real world, and a chance for companies to work with talented developers in the making. Internships are included at no additional cost to students.

Financing

Deposit

$100

Financing

Yes, available through Climb Credit and Skills Fund.

Getting in

Minimum Skill Level

N/A

Placement Test

No

Interview

No

More Start Dates

October 14, 2019 - Seattle

January 6, 2020 - Seattle

January 6, 2020 - Portland

Intro to Programming (Part-Time Evening)

This course is for absolute beginners to learn the fundamentals of programming. After completing this course, you'll be able to build basic webpages and understand programming fundamentals. No coding experience is required, but computer proficiency is necessary.
Here's some of what we'll cover:
HTML and CSS: the presentation and styling languages of the web
Git: the tool programmers use to track their code
Command line: the tool programmers use to interact with their computers
Markdown: a simple language for documents
JavaScript: the programming language of the web
jQuery: a JavaScript library for making interactive web pages
Bootstrap: a framework for easily creating good-looking websites

Financing

Deposit

$100

Financing

Getting in

Minimum Skill Level

None

Placement Test

No

Interview

No

More Start Dates

October 14, 2019 - Online

January 6, 2020 - Online

October 14, 2019 - Seattle

January 6, 2020 - Seattle

October 14, 2019 - Portland

January 6, 2020 - Portland

Ruby and React

Our focus is to prepare you for a career in the growing tech industry. Learning to code is a valuable skill that employers are constantly searching for in web development and design careers.
Each track begins with a 5-week Introduction to Programming course for beginners to learn the fundamentals of programming. After completing this course, you'll be able to build basic web pages and understand programming fundamentals. No coding experience is required, but computer proficiency is necessary.
Next, you'll spend five weeks learning Ruby. Ruby is a programming language focused on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write. The Ruby programming language is most commonly used with the Ruby on Rails framework. Each track also includes a 5-week JavaScript course.
Each track also includes a 5-week JavaScript course. After studying Ruby you'll jump into five weeks of JavaScript, the only programming language understood by all web browsers, making it the most common language for web and mobile development. Students who learn how to code in JavaScript will be able to create simple to complex web pages, add interactivity features to an existing site, and update pages quickly without reloading.
Next, you'll spend five weeks learning React. React is a JavaScript library used to create dynamic, interactive user interfaces. It allows a site to quickly update many different elements at once, without reloading the page. Since its development at Facebook in 2011 it has exploded in popularity.
Finally, you'll spend five weeks at an internship with a tech company. As part of Epicodus, local companies host students as full-time interns. It's a chance for students to learn about how development works in the real world, and a chance for companies to work with talented developers in the making. Internships are included at no additional cost to students.

I was a part of the first Android cohort. My class should've been advertised as a trial run because that's what it felt like most of the way through. Our Android curriculum was incomplete - it was literally just not there. At least a third of the class dropped out. Our teacher left after the first 2 months and Michael (who runs Epicodus) became our teacher, except he had no working knowledge of Android and was also clearly distracted since he runs the entire program. We considered asking for a refund for the Android portion of our course because it felt like there was no structure whatsoever at this point. I understand that Epicodus stresses independant learning, but the whole entire course should not be a free-for-all.

We were informed half through that there weren't enough internships for everyone in the class, and a number of students had to wait for a "second round" of internships. A lot of people were unhappy with their internships. I've heard from cohorts since mine (including current Epicodus interns that interning where I ended up getting a job) that the internship selection has been pretty junky still - lots of companies canceling at the last minute because of communication issues.

Most importantly, I would like to suggest that prospective Epicodus students take reviews written by graduates from 2015 and earlier with a grain of salt: there are still jobs for junior devs, but there are many, MANY more job-seeking bootcamp grads than there used to be. The demand is not quite so high as it used to be.

Positives of my experience: having a group of people I graduated with that now serve as a very helpful network/support system. My first teacher Jake Kaad was great, but he was frustrated with the curriculum and also found a better job. I did indeed end up getting hired from my internship, but I had won a scholarship from the company that I interned with and because of this, I had a bit of an advantage from the start.

Epicodus could be great, and I can't speak to the current curriculum. I would suggest that people considering Epicodus try to reach out to recent grads on LinkedIn.

Response From: Michael Kaiser-Nyman of Epicodus

Thanks for sharing your your experience here. I think this was a unique situation with a teacher who didn't come through, and we've also come a long way to address the issues you've described.

One of the things that we struggled with last year at Epicodus was students who passed our pre-class coding challenge to gain entrance to the class but did not really understand the code they submitted. As we grew from 60 students at the beginning of 2015 to 150 at the end, what started as an issue for a small number of people became a much larger problem. As you mention, we had a relatively high drop-out rate in your class, because many of the students started without the fundamentals they needed from their pre-class work.

Now, we've scrapped our pre-class work in favor of assuming that all students have little or no coding background and extending our course by 5 weeks to cover all of those introductory topics that used to be pre-work. This has worked out much better for our students' success.

I disagree with your characterization of your class's structure. When I came in to teach, I discovered that the first teacher did not provide the proper feedback to struggling students letting them know that they were not on track. It's a tough thing to tell someone who's working hard that they aren't succeeding, but if you never tell a student that, they just get further and further off. I had frank discussions with multiple students about their prospects for success given where they were at when I came in. In the end, I had to manage a class of students with a wide range of skills, many of whom disregarded my guidance about what to work on.

Now, we've standardized our assessment process so that teachers have more accountability to fail students when it's the right thing to do. When students don't pass their assessments, we no longer let them continue on - we've found that the tough love of helping them move on is really the best outcome.

I'm also surprised to hear you say that the first teacher was "frustrated with the curriculum" - he in fact developed it, it was of very variable quality, and I had to re-write much of it as the class went on.

Now, our curriculum development process is centralized, so that all of the teaching materials meet the same quality standards.

As for internships, we made the mistake of trying to line up internships in December, when your class ended. While we were able to find internships for many of our students, many companies didn't have the capacity for mentorship during the holiday season, and asked to postpone until January. We gave all of the students in your class the option to take a free extra month of class followed by a January internship, which over half chose.

Now, we don't do December internships :) And while there are always a couple companies who drop out of our internship program at the last minute, we're working hard to find more ways to communicate to them how harmful that is to the students they've agreed to take, and figure out how to have backup options if a company does drop out.

In short, your class was a bit of a perfect storm: a large number of underprepared students, a teacher who didn't do a great job building curriculum or giving feedback to struggling students, and internships that we tried to start too close to the holidays. Since then, we've made our class longer so that we can teach the basics in person, we've strengthened our curriculum development and student assessment, and improved our internship scheduling.

I'd be the last person to say that Epicodus is perfect or doesn't have room to grow. We've improved the quality of our education since you attended, and we'll continue to learn from our experience and keep improving.

I was in the cohort above Sam Stoia, and his review is accurate and very well written so I won't repeat everything he said, but suffice to say I agree with him at least 90%. I'll just point out where I differ or have additional thoughts:

-the cost is low because the overhead is low. It's pretty bare bones and the teachers may not be paid as well as other places, or (especially) compared to a programming job, which would help explain turnover. This would also go some way toward explaining some of the curriculum being outdated. Developing new curriuculum constantly takes time and money.

-I think the cost being low is partially an ethical choice-- I think the owner is trying to make a bootcamp that is as accessible as possible. The first 5 weeks being free speaks to that as well. There are pros and cons to this. The obvious pro is that it's cheaper... and the cohort was more diverse than I expected, which was awesome. People from many different walks of life trying to make the same transition. But the curriculum and support were occasionally spotty. There isn't much handholding from staff. You have to support eachother.

-To really succeed at this, I think you need to have enough money in the bank or support from family / partner etc. or loans to live on for roughly 8-9 months, without working a ton. The coursework is very taxing and if you're working 5 nights a week, it's going to be that much harder. Additionally, it often takes 1-3 months to land a job after the course. Some people get jobs right away, most don't. If I didn't have some savings and the support of my wife, I probably would have gone back to my old job before I landed a programming job. Being rejected over and over is hard! But you have to keep trying. It's a normal part of the process, even for experienced programmers.

-The lack of data structure and algorithm study is probably intentional. Those concepts are not very likely to be directly useful to you in your first programming job. Some interviewers ask you those questions, others don't. Really depends on the culture and background of the company and interviewer. I biffed an interview super hard where the main question was traversing a red-black tree. I'd never heard of that! I was mortified. All the people at this company were CS grads who'd worked at Microsoft since the 90's. Then I got an interview at a company where the programmers I'd be working with were almost all self taught, and zero algorithm questions, just programming questions. I aced it, which felt incredibly redeeming.

-There's so, so, so much to learn. While it would be great to have a bootcamp where you learn exactly what you need to do a job, then you get that job, I don't think that's the reality. You're learning a bunch of languages and concepts you may or may not use directly, but in the process you're learning HOW TO LEARN. The job I ended up getting uses mostly PHP, which I knew nothing about going into it, but the skills I was able to demonstrate in other languages convinced my employer that I would be able to quickly get up to speed. And I have. I was making PRs by my second day of work.

-It's frustrating, it's difficult, you'll want to pull your hair out on an almost daily basis. As soon as you grasp one difficult concept you'll be on to something else just as baffling. Sometimes you never understand something, and you just move on. I've never felt so mentally lost as during this bootcamp. You have to have the confidence that you're learning anyway, and it's normal to feel this way. There will be a few people in the class for whom everything is "easy" and they find ridiculously simple and they build crazy apps while you're still debugging step one or two. Don't compare yourself with those people. It will drive you mad. You can still succeed and you can still get a job. You probably have other strengths that those people lack, which will come in useful in a programming job. (That's what I tell myself ;))

-If the coursework moves past you and you feel like you're totally f*cked (happened to me during Angular and parts of React) just keep your cool. Keep applying yourself. Even if you have to bypass the coursework. Look up supplemental stuff on YouTube or Udemy. Find different ways to continue moving forward. Be flexible. Don't give up.

-Exercise, get 7-8 hours of sleep. Eat well. Cancel Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, everything! Seriously! Don't allow yourself to check out. Your brain gets so tired it wants to do anything other than keep trying learning this stuff. So you have to put distractions out of sight. Go for a walk instead, talk to your classmates, watch video tutorials online... do something different, but not something vapid and addictive.

As Sam mentioned, the internship is KEY. I stayed in my (unpaid) internship for 2 months, and although it was frustrating to being doing real work for free, I think it paid off. Every week I would add whatever I'd done that week to my linked-in resume. Even if it was something I'd only done once and didn't totally understand. I would even ask my supervisor at the internship to help me phrase it correctly. My previous career started shrinking on my resume, until 80% of the resume was 2 months of the internship and the other 20% was the past 12 years of construction. The job I ended up getting, I was only noticed for that position because of some tasks/skills I had listed on my resume that I had learned at my internship. Work experience is critical.

All in all, I found this course extremely difficult. I was not in the top of my class. But after MANY job applications and a lot of work, I got an entry level job as a programmer that pays $15k more a year than the job I left as a construction superintendent, and it took me 12 years to get up to that role! That's what I wanted out of this course, and I got it.

This review is for the Seattle campus where I was enrolled. I hear Portland is very different and a bit more established, but I can’t speak to that. I was enrolled in the C#/JavaScript/React track.

If I could, I would probably give Epicodus a 3.5 star rating. Generally positive, but with a few sore spots. I’ll round up to 4 stars. A little about me, I had absolutely ZERO coding experience and exposure before starting the course. Of course, having some coding background could have helped me, but the course does truly assume no knowledge from the beginning. I think all coding bootcamps are probably tough, and Epicodus is no exception. While the first 5 week unit (Intro to Programming) is no walk in the park, it only gets harder from there. The C# and JavaScript units move at a really fast pace, and pretty much everyone in my cohort, and the cohorts above and below me had their fair share of struggles. Some of those struggles are based on the difficulties of learning new technologies from scratch. Others, were because of problems with Epicodus’ curriculum. I’ll try to review the entire experience as best as I can.

The good:

Structure. If you’re like me, you need a structured learning environment to keep you motivated and accountable. While many people may have been able to teach themselves how to become developers through books and online tutorials, that doesn’t work for everyone. Epicodus provides teachers who offer assistance when you get stuck, as well as a whole class of peers who can help you troubleshoot problems. The curriculum, while lacking (more on that later), does generally build throughout each week before you are given an independent project to complete on Friday. The mix of teachers, course work, and independent projects does provide a structured learning environment that makes it easier to learn compared to if you tried to learn from scratch on your own.

Internships. I think this is where Epicodus stands out. The fact that an internship, albeit short(5 weeks), is built into the program, means you get some on the job experience as well as some familiarity with going through the job interview process.

Support. I imagine every new wave of students is different, but my cohort developed into a really close and supportive group of people. Having them go through the exact same struggles as me helped build a sense of camaraderie and made the tough times a little bit better.

Price. I don’t think there’s a much better deal out there for an in-person, full-time bootcamp. $6,900 (if you pay up front) is generally about half of what other schools charge.

The bad:

Curriculum. It’s not necessarily that the coursework is always bad. It’s that some of it is wrong or out of date and Epicodus is slow to fix problems. There were weeks during the C# unit where the course work would flat out not build properly based on the lessons. The cohort ahead of me experienced it, our cohort experienced it, the cohort below me experienced it. An instructor was in the process of rewriting some of the C# material, though, so maybe it will improve for later cohorts. In the JavaScript section, the lessons teach you to build projects with old versions of certain technologies because they know those versions don’t conflict with each other. That would be fine, except many of those versions are no longer supported and have glaring security issues. It would not be OK to build with these versions in the real world, so I’m not sure why Epicodus does not update their lessons to include newer versions that are not deprecated.

Professionalism. I don’t say this lightly, but Epicodus has an issue with how it handles itself internally. I was at the school during a time of particularly high turnover, but it seems like the instructors are in a constant state of flux. My cohort’s first teacher had just graduated from Epicodus about 6 months prior. While this teacher was competent, I do think people should know that you’re not necessarily going to be getting a seasoned developer as an instructor at Epicodus. We were meant to get a more established teacher for the last ten weeks of the class, but that teacher was suddenly pulled away to work on rewriting some of the outdated lessons. Epicodus then hired one of the students who had been in the cohort just ahead of us to be our instructor, and this person literally only had 10 more weeks of experience with coding than our cohort. When my class finished, all three of the Seattle instructors i just mentioned left for other jobs, so I have no clue what the future of the program looks like now. Just know, your teacher is likely to themselves be a recent Epicodus graduate.

Data Structures and Algorithms. The course does not really go into these crucial aspects of becoming a developer. This is mostly because there just isn’t enough time, and it’s not really on Epicodus to teach these. However, In order to get a job, you will need to learn some basic computer science concepts because they are pretty much all you will get asked in an interview. I suggest buying a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview, and either buying a Udemy data structures course or taking the Harvard CS50 course on edX to supplement the Epicodus curriculum.

Conclusion:

Coding is hard. Even in the perfect environment, there would have been huge hurdles for me to jump over in order to learn this stuff. There is going to be frustration. There is going to be imposter syndrome. You will get mentally and physically exhausted. But, if you’re eager to learn, this is a good place. Just know, you will likely run into issues with the curriculum at times, and your teachers might be limited in how much expertise they can offer. That all being said, I would rate my experience as generally positive. I learned a ton, and hope to continue that learning process now that I’m done with the class.

I would say that my overall experience there was pretty great. Pair programming can be a struggle, and sometimes it felt like I was banging my head against a wall, but overall I learned a lot from the instruction given.

I think the key to success was making sure you take the homework seriously. I found a huge difference between simply reading it, and really digging in and trying to understand things on an almost intuitive level if I could achieve it. It seems like this would be a no-brainer, but I felt like I saw several classmates do the bare minimum and it really reflected on their performance in class, and sometimes making pair programming frustrating because having not done the work, it would be teaching them all of the concepts again. Though that was really good too because then it further solidified the concepts in my head.

The cirriculum was dated, and sometimes help wasn't available very quickly from instructors, but the lack of help was rare, all things considered. I did feel like the staff was stretched thin, but that was my perceptions, perhaps on the other side of the table it's a different story.

The dated cirriculum was a bit frustration, but I can imagine with little staff to update the cirriculum, it wasn't easy to stay on the cutting edge. The other thing though... having gone through it, I realized that the cutting edge isn't necessarily the best place to be because it's often not vetted properly, so I became less frustrated with the dated cirriculum as I realized that, yes it's dated... but also it just works without unanticipated bugs. Most of the bugs we'd run into from our stacks would have solutions if we dug for them. Had it been the newest stuff, we'd be debugging javascript based issues without pre-existing solutions, which could drastically slow things down potentially.

Overall I'd say it was a great experience, and nothing beats the value of the internship that they placed me in. Having even 5 weeks of real world work experiences was worth the value of the program without a doubt.

Epicodus has a very strong hands-on approach to learning coding. And since running into problems and finding solutions is a core aspect of coding in the real world, the school truly prepares you in a way online programs cannot do. Epicodus focuses less on the coding material and more on the real world application of coding. The tech field is still very new and so many aspects can be changed overnight that it's crucial to not only have your fundamentals down, but also be able to learn how to learn and always be on your feet so you never find yourself caught off guard and fall behind. I can tell Epicodus really puts a lot of thought into that and their program reflects that.

I recently finished the intro to programming course and plan on taking the full-time course at a later time. Epicodus provides you with all the resource that you will need to enter the career field of programming and software development. Of course, you need to put in the hours but epicodus will be there to teach you the proper way of doing things. I think epicodus is very welcoming of anyone who wants to learn programming, there are people that are just starting and people with a bit more experience but everybody gets the attention they need. I will continue to master and have fun with what I learned at the intro course.

I graduated from Epicodus in September 2018 and got hired by my internship host company right away. Actually, one of the main reasons why I chose Epicodus was an internship, included in the course. But overall experience turned out to be great. The school learning curriculum was well structured, lessons were clear and easy to follow, still leaving a room for curiosity, and encouraging further exploration. Our instructor, John Franti, was impressively knowledgable and ethical.

After the course, I felt quite well prepared for the interviews with the companies hosting Epicodus interns (yes, you have to go through the real interview process to get the internship placement, which is an especially valuable experience on its own).

I would recommend Epicodus to anyone who has a desire to start a new career path in software development (and who is ready to put an effort to get there).

To anyone considering Epicodus, I would highly recommend it. If you are lucky enough to get John Franti he is a flexible, patient instructor, who definitely will you help you to be successful in any we possible. In terms of the curriculum at Epicodus it definitely prepares you for your job search after graduation. If you put in the effort, it will definitely pay off as it did for me, as I’m currently am full-time front end engineer 6 months after graduation

I attended the night-time Intro to Programming course this last fall, and I was definitely not disappointed. I had tried doing some online free courses and, although I had learned a lot through those free courses, I knew I needed something more structured and with face time in order to really grasp some of the concepts. This class was perfect for that. Not only was Kyle a great instructor and there for any questions we had, but the whole setup of the class itself made for a great learning environment. I was a little nervous about pair programming, as I’ve always thought that I learned better by myself when I can just sit with something and go at my own pace, but I was pleasantly surprised. Working with someone allowed me to ask questions, explore, and learn with them in ways I know I wouldn’t have done on my own. The course material was pretty great as well, just because we covered a wide variety of topics and there was enough there to do in class to understand the basics, but also because there was plenty to do at home if we wanted to.

I haven’t had the chance to join a full-time class, but I fully intend to once I have the budget and time to do so. Taking the part-time class was totally worth it. I actually took the skills I learned in that class and made a brand new website for my company. Like I said before, there are plenty of incredible online resources, but if you find yourself needing more structure and a great learning environment — choose Epicodus.

I personally had a really good experience at Epicodus. After trying my hand at using free online resources to teach myself coding, I found that I really needed the structure of a classroom with schedules and deadlines to keep me motivated and on task as well as teachers and peers to help answer questions and improve my understanding. To this end, Epicodus was totally worth it. The course work was mostly very good. There were occasional issues since curriculum is often being updated, but the staff were responsive to feedback. I also found the response to questions was usually prompt and helpful, but even more important was my amazing cohort. Pair programming with other students every day was sometimes intimidating, but really helped me learn. From answering questions to helping interpret lessons to giving feedback on code, working in pairs (and groups for projects) was one of the most valuable features of the program.

The internship was a big selling point for Epicodus as well, and I was very fortunate to get a great internship. I know that the internship experience of my cohort varied, with a few students having major issues, but hopefully Epicodus will continue to increase their consistency with respect to quality internships. Regardless of internship, I feel that the career support for graduates is pretty strong and another benefit that makes the program well worth it.

I decided to attend the Intro to Programming Course (evening/part time) at Epicodus once I knew I was moving to Portland from NYC. It was a great chance to meet new people, learn some new skills, and see if I might be interested in changing careers. The Intro to Programming Course was perfect for me because it allowed me to get a taste of programming without having to commit to a full-time program and was flexible around a work schedule. The price point was also perfect for me.

Our instructor Kyle was great - he was happy to be as hands-on or as laid back as each programming pair needed. I loved pair-programming - there are so many online resources that you could technically teach yourself most of the programming stuff you'd need to know... but if you're an interactive learner like me that benefits from mutual accountability.... SIGN UP FOR EPICODUS. You'll learn so much from your partners, both about programming and how to think about problem solving. This course was totally worth it!

I’ve researched a few bootcamp school and Epicodus was the right fit for me. The price is reasonable for what I was looking for. Coursework is straightforward and the videos are great but wish there was a few more videos towards the end of the course which they are aware of. It was very challenging for me esp. with no coding experience but I was able to pull through with the support of the instructor and my cohort. The instructor is very knowledgeable and helped me comprehend the basics.

Overall, I enjoyed (even on the tough days) and learned the skills I need to continue to grow my business attending Epicodus.

Epicodus is a great place to learn how to code and become a developer. Coming from a non traditional developer background, Epicodus gave me the skills and the confidence to land my dream job. The staff, teachers, and fellow students were and still are amazing support system. If you ever thought to yourself, “I want to learn how to code but don’t know where to start”, let Epicodus give you that start. “I would like to become a developer but I am not smart enough”, let Epicodus prove you wrong.

I enrolled in Epicodus during the late summer of 2017 and graduated as recently as March of 2018. I started my first day at my new job in early July. I wouldn't have been able to start this new position if it weren't for the skills and direction that Epicodus provided for me. The instructors are top notch they do not coddle you and walk you through everything, they know how to proud your mind into thinking in a manner that you will eventually come to a conclusion and if you eventually cannot solve it they will find the time to assist you. Class sizes are reasonable and the people there seemed very friendly. The atmosphere is not competetive in any way, I was in no way shape or form the best person or strongest coder in my cohort, but I felt like in order to find a job after your classes are finished you must be relentless in applications if you want to work. Also I knew from fairly early on I didn't necessarily want to work as an App Developer I just wanted to help build and design websites.

I started with a bit of extra web development experience compared with the majority of my classmates. Within 2 weeks I felt like I was swimming in the deep end, Epicodus is FAST at ramping up and challenging you to your fullest. I loved every moment of it. (I should mention that Epicodus does not require you to have any development experience as their courses will bring you up to speed. They do a great job at it!)

The classroom environment is set for rapid learning, the instructors were great and very knowledgeable and you are surrounded by other students who learning along with you. Sometimes asking another student for help is just as helpful as getting guidance from an instructor. Although troubleshooting issues on your own is part of the process, this prevents you from getting stuck for too long on any one problem.

In addition to learning how to code the latest technologies, the guidance that they provided for your Linkedin, resumes, and cover letters were amazing. They helped me look like an aspiring professional with the skills and experience to back it up. Highly recommend and have already done so to a friend!

Epicodus stands out from other bootcamps because of its academic structure. It's a 6-moth, 40 hour a week program. You treat it like a job and feel like a real developer right from the start. It's roughly the same number of classroom hours as an undergrad CS degree, and since it's done in six months, students are learning the latest, most relevant technology. By the time I graduated, I had hundreds of hours in React and two Android portfolio pieces on my resume, which helped me stand out.

I loved my instructors and how they taught the core principles of coding. The fact that learnhowtoprogram.com is free says a lot about Epicodus' mission to help everyone have the opportunity to learn. I would recommend Epicodus to anyone willing to work hard to change their career path.

I am very thankful for my time at Epicodus, and for the opportunities it has opened up for me. When I started, I had very little programming experience aside from a few online tutorials. I learned an amazing amount in 6 months. As a developer, you'll need to learn new skills and technologies quickly, and Epicodus gives you great practice!

I think pair programming is a very effective way to learn, and it gives you a taste of what it's like working on a development team. You get to know your classmates very well, and walk away with new friends, and a strong professional network.

Learning is self-driven, with a teacher providing support, but mostly letting you work through problems with your partner. It was definitely stressful and difficult at times, but also fun and interesting. The weekly code reviews give you a chance to assess what you understand and what you need to study. Most of the time you're creating projects from scratch, which gives you a clear understanding of what all the pieces are doing, but not a lot of experience diving into an existing codebase. I thought the curriculum taught relevant skills, with Git, JavaScript, JavaScript frameworks, and SQL being particularly valuable.

Epicodus provides help with LinkedIn, resumes, cover letters, interview practice, and also with the demo days several times a year. You start using Git on day one, and will have a solid GitHub profile by the end of the program. I had a great internship experience, but they do seem to vary. You may not get a job through your internship, or immediately after graduation. I had to apply to a lot of jobs, and it took a few months before I got a paid development internship, but I did get there! Overall, Epicodus is a great value for your money. I highly recommend it!

Before starting at Epicodus, I knew next to nothing about programming. As I look back two years after graduating the program, I can say with full confidence that it was my decision to enroll at Epicodus that launched my fulfilling and exciting career in web development.

Epicodus teachers and staff strive to create and maintain a unique environment where students can safely learn new technologies and hone their programming skills. By pair programming with my colleagues, I learned how to verbalize concepts, collaborate with others, solve complex problems, and learn from my mistakes. After I completed all my courses, I enrolled in their internship program. During those five weeks, I gained valuable, hands-on, real-life programming experience and had the opportunity to learn from seasoned developers.

Landing a job as a programmer certainly requires training beforehand and plenty of hard work along the way. But I can honestly say that if I had not attended Epicodus, I certainly would not be doing the work I love so much today. I am grateful to the team at Epicodus for providing me with the environment, tools, and trainng I needed to jump start my career and pursue my dreams.

The Epicodus 6 month bootcamp program is for the courageous and dedicated person who desires to transition into a high tech career.

It is NOT like a college or university program with several classes and a schedule you can design for yourself.

It is like a demanding entry level job. One must be there 8 to 5, Monday to Friday week after week for 6 months.One cannot afford to take days off.And yes, one needs to stay dedicated and regularly study during nights and weekends.

The reward for completing this program, is knowing that you can in fact work in a fast paced software development environment.You can in fact work well both alone and also all day with colleagues.And you can work with a variety of modern computer languages, frameworks and tools, in a short amount of time. You know this, because this is what you have been doing for 6 months.

Proof is both in your Github portfolio and in a rigorous report of accomplishment and attendance from Epicodus.

Epicodus is a credible organization that reliably produces qualified software development and high tech workers in their 6 month program.

Epicodus was without a doubt the best career decision I have ever made. My only regret is not attending sooner. Two weeks after graduation, I accepted a job offer that was nearly double of what I was making before and had been invited to interview with 10 companies.

~*~TUITION~*~

When I enrolled, the cost of tuition was $4800; now it’s $6900. I went to Epicodus over any other bootcamp in the area because of the cost (and reviews!). $4800 was a big investment for me at the time and I would’ve gone the route of an online bootcamp if it had cost any more.

~*~ CURRICULUM~*~

I completed the CSS/Design track.

The Intro curriculum is very comprehensive but many of the videos in the Intro are long overdue for a re-recording, due to poor audio quality and errors.

Epicodus now offers CSS/Design and CSS/React tracks. CSS/React wasn’t available at the time of my enrollment. I imagine those who are taking the CSS/React track are more interested in front end development than design. My cohort was about 50/50 split of those who were interested in UX/UI Design and front end development.

The CSS/Design track needs an overhaul. I think the JavaScript module should be dropped for the CSS/Design students and replaced with more UX concepts and product design fundamentals, as the 3 weeks the Design class offers are not enough. I had graphic design experience before Epicodus which gave me an advantage, but it’s been a struggle for others to find a UX/UI job with only 3 weeks of UX/UI-related courses under their belts. There are tons of design opportunities in the Portland-area and Epicodus would be wise to invest in a stronger Design program.

Unfortunately, the current Design track offers even less design-focused coursework. It now includes only 2 weeks of Design, with 2 weeks of React. Epicodus also offers a CSS/React course, so why React is in a design course is beyond me.

The CSS module should also spend less time on floats and introduce new CSS concepts like CSS grid, as well as designing sites with accessibility in mind and cross-browser compatibility.

~*~TEACHERS~*~

Teachers vary in enthusiasm, knowledge of the concepts, and commitment. When you get stuck, you can submit a ticket and a teacher will come by to help. It generally doesn’t take more than 5 or so minutes to get help, but it can take up to an hour - in which case, you’ll be relying on your fellow students for help.

I wished my weekly code reviews included more thorough feedback and that I had more 1:1 time with a teacher to discuss my progress and struggles.

~*~PAIR PROGRAMMING~*~

I’m very introverted, so I knew that Epicodus would be stepping outside of my comfort zone.

Pairing was generally a positive experience. Some days I was the weak link, some days I carried my pair through the day, and on others we screamed at the computer together. I learned something new from every person I paired with, whether it was a keyboard shortcut in Chrome, Atom, Sketch or a new way of thinking about a concept.

Generally I liked pairing because when left to my own devices, I get easily distracted, so sharing a computer with someone else all day kept me from checking Twitter.

~*~JOB ASSISTANCE~*~

When you graduate, you’ll receive weekly check ins, access to a job board for alums and weekly job digests (with opportunities that allow you to apply directly to a hiring manager). I found the weekly check ins really helpful, as I often had questions on how to phrase specific things during interviews and negotiations.

I only saw one design-related job posting in the digests and job board, though.

~*~INTERNSHIP~*~

The internship opportunity at the end of the program is great. Most people in my class got matched with their first or second choices. Although my internship experience was not positive, I don’t think I would’ve landed the job I have now without the internship, as I was doing similar work within the same tech stack and got to talk about that experience during the interview process.

~*~HOT TIPZ FOR SUCCEEDING AT EPICODUS AND BEYOND~*~

- Make Epicodus the most important thing in your life. Be prepared to eat, sleep, and breathe Epicodus. Your friends, family, spouse, and hobbies will need to take a back seat during the program. Dive as deep as you can into the curriculum and technologies you’re learning.

- If you can swing it, don’t work while attending Epicodus. Again, everything else in your life should take a back seat.

- Create a README template and use it for at least your Friday projects. Include a detailed description for the project, along with set up/installation instructions, and screenshots.

- Create an online portfolio. Even if you’re not a designer. DO IT. It will help establish your credibility. Make a YourName.com website with a link to some of your projects, your background, and ways to contact you. When I have told non-design students this, they scoff and say “I have my GitHub, my code will speak for itself.” That’s not true.

The first person to look at your job application may be a CEO or a Recruiter who doesn’t know how to code or have time to weed through your GitHub repos. You won’t get a job right out of code school because you’re an amazing designer or developer, you’ll get a job because someone likes you, believes in your potential, and thinks you’ll fit in with their team. You’re more than just your code or designs and people want to see that.

- Start making your portfolio when you hit JavaScript class and launch it before your internship starts. If you’re a Design student, don’t even think about applying for a job unless you have a portfolio, so get on it ASAP.

- Familiarize yourself with Agile development and project trackers like Trello and Pivotal Tracker and use them seriously during your group weeks. Put those experiences as skills on your resume and talk about them during interviews. If you’re not working in an Agile environment or using project trackers during your internship, try to get the team on board. Employers eat this stuff up! They are looking for people who can work within a larger team. Maybe you have this fantasy about being the Lone Programmer Hero - and perhaps someday you’ll get there, but it’s not how you will get your foot in the door.

- Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” before you go on your internship interviews.

- Have business cards ready in time for your internship interviews and have enough to hand out at Demo Day. Make sure the cards include links to your online portfolio, GitHub, LinkedIn, and email address.

- In addition to business cards, bring printed resumes to Demo Day.

- Don’t think you need to settle for the median starting salary for grads. Your skills are worth much much more than that. SOMEONE has to be living in all those shiny new condos - why not you? Look up salaries on Glassdoor for every single company you apply to and use tools like StackOverflow’s salary calculator. Again, your skills coming out of Epicodus are highly valuable no matter what anyone may tell you, don’t forget that!

- Apply for your jobs during your internship, or even before. Get on it! Don’t wait until after the internship to start applying.

- Don’t expect your internship to hire you after the 5 weeks are over, no matter what they promise you. Apply for other jobs.

- Think of job listing requirements as an employer’s wish list. Don’t be deterred by years of required experience. Apply for a position because it appeals to you, don’t pigeonhole yourself as a junior and only apply for jobs with junior in the title. I applied for a senior position and got an interview. I wasn’t hired but hey, they still saw something in me, despite asking for 5-7 years experience.

- I hate the expectation that designers and developers should do nothing but do work-related things in their free time, but use the time you’re attending Epicodus to invest in yourself and your future career. You’ll need to hustle hard and sell yourself to various companies when you graduate. When you get a job, you can go back to being a normal and well-rounded human being again.

- Pack a ding dang lunch. The vending machines and food carts are not worth it and will kill your wallet.

- Sign up for a Treehouse account, it complements with the curriculum (especially Intro, JavaScript, and CSS) and it’s a good place to start branching out to learn other things you’re passionate about.

- If you live in Multnomah County and have a library card, you can use Lynda.com for free.

- Go to meet ups. I went to a 2-3 meet ups a month and as much as I’d like to tell you I schmoozed and networked, I didn’t. I prefer going to workshops or specific talks rather than the ones where you have to stand around and to talk to strangers. To be honest, I often went to meet ups with fellow classmates and mostly just talked to them, but going to them helped me feel like I was part of a larger community and I usually learned something new or interesting.

- Be a resource for your classmates. You’re all in this together.

- Your classmates are not your competition. There may be overlap when interviewing, but have some perspective: there are lots of jobs in the world. Support each other. Your classmates are your friends and future colleagues.

- When you graduate, ask the career coordinator ANYTHING. I relied on her heavily for wording things in interviews, turning opportunities down, and negotiations and it helped me immensely!

- Customize your cover letters for every single role you apply to. Be genuine, don’t be a “To Whom It May Concern, I am very interested in your firm” robot. I cold applied for about 50 jobs and had been invited to interview with 10 companies (2 were from Demo Day, 1 was a recruiter who reached out to me, but the 7 others were jobs I cold applied to online). In my cover letters, I not only mentioned what my skills were and what I’d bring to the company, but WHY I liked them and what they were doing. People LIKE when you like them!

- Be the kind of person you want to work with. Show up on time, be honest, don’t disappear on your pair without warning, and don’t sleep in just because you don’t feel like going to school that day. School will be over before you know it, make the most of the time.

~*~THINGS THAT COULD IMPROVE~*~

- The CSS/Design track often feels like the odd one out. For example, there are lunch speakers every Wednesday and none of the speakers during my stint at Epicodus were design-related. The Eventbrite invitation for Demo Day mentioned that we were CSS/React, not CSS/Design. Does that mean there were design agencies and companies in need of designers that skipped out on Demo Day because design students weren’t listed?

- Amenities. Paper towels in the cafeteria were a rare sight and it’d be great if the kitchen stocked silverware.

- The attendance policy is far too lax.

- Code reviews from teachers should include DETAILED feedback and notes. It was disappointing to put my all into something for 9 hours and receive only “Good job!” as feedback.

- Do teachers at Epicodus use a plagiarism detector? Because they should.

- I wish online portfolios were a mandatory part of graduation, like creating a resume, cover letter, and cleaning up your GitHub.

- Companies should be required to provide more details about what they are looking for in an intern, the type of projects the interns will be working on, and if they are looking for someone with a design or development background. This would make the initial rankings and going into interviews less stressful. I felt like I was going to 5 blind dates because I had so little information about the companies and what they expected (and yes, lots of the companies had very barebones websites). It's hard to answer questions like "why do you want to intern for us?" when companies provided so little information in Epicenter and had a minimal internet presence.

- If 75% of grads are making $60k or less, the salary breakdown for employed grads should show more ranges for those making less than $60k. Also, I’d like to see salary breakdown for both Portland AND Seattle grads. And breakdowns by track.

Epicodus was a great experience for my particular situation. I had been studying front end development on my own for about 5 months when I began attending part-time evening classes at Epicodus. The work was challenging enough to the point where I definitely gained new skills at a much quicker rate than I would've otherwise. Pair programming was also a great experiece because it taught me to see things from another point of view and how to better work in a team setting. And can we talk about that price tag for the class! So affordable! I would recommend Epicodus' part time class to anyone who's looking to jump-start his or her dive into the web development world. There is a whole lot you'll have to outside of class to become proficient but the curriculum will definitely get you on track.

I hesitated on changing careers for years, staying in something that paid the bills but wasn't what I wanted to do. Then I moved to Portland and completed the Ruby on Rails track at Epicodus. I found the fast paced course was challenging. Pair programming helped with learning concepts and keeping engaged for the full day. The instructors and my cohort were all positive influences throughout my coding journey and I learned more and faster than if I were doing this at home on my computer. My internship helped me get a feel for the real world and also were mentors be for me. The support I received after graduating was terrific. Weekly check-ins and regular job listings from companies looking for epicodus grads was another plus. If you're thinking about moving to attend Epicodus, I'm proof you can do it. Especially for the women out there, you won't find a more supportive community for women in tech than Portland.

The most important point I want to stress is that I saw far too many people enter this program without doing ANY programming experience at all. How can you know if something suits you if you've never tried it? There's no excuse, simply sign up for udacity's CS101 course and see if you're into it. If you don't find the challenge fun, do NOT sign up at any coding bootcamp. Programming jobs pay well because it's very challenging work, not because there's a shortage of entry-level programmers (there is a shortage of GOOD programmers).

With that said, my experience at Epicodus was almost entirely positive. I learned A LOT, very quickly and pair programming was a blast. If I were to recommend any changes for the curriculum, I would include 5 weeks (or more) of CS fundamentals and raise the acceptance bar.

I also want to say that the new career counselor in Seattle (Mindy) is incredible. She has been professionally trained as a career coach / interview coach and knows her stuff. Definitely utilize her knowledge if you're in the Seattle program.

I applied to Epicodus in October 2016 for the January - June Full Time C#/Javascript development course.

Financing was easy to obtain, staff was very helpful with any question that I had pertaining to the the enrollment process.

On the first day of class I was surprised at the classroom environment. It was very open and they were just setting up in a new building. For about a month my class was the only one in the building, but every few weeks a new class began and the empty building filled with more desks and computers.

One of the biggest perks was the pair programming environment. It really fostered effective communication--a crucial skill in any work environment. My group did not have any experienced programmers and I think that worked to our benefit.

We all worked day by day through trial and error. Not a single day I can remember was easy; the curriculum was challenging. Sometimes it was frustrating, but if you don't make any mistakes how can you learn a lesson?

There was some instruction involved, and instructors were available when pairs got stuck. Most of the time we were left to ourselves to figure everything out after a quick morning briefing on the days topic. We would ask other pairs for help before asking the instructors; this was also beneficial.

Every pair approached handling the exact same problems in different manners. Some of us had a clear understanding of object-oriented programming. Some of us understood design. Some of us understood databases. You get the point. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad days.

I would be lying if I said you could skate by without studying at home. There is a lot to take in. I will say, however, that if you don't want to work hard to gain a new skillset why are you thinking of going through a full time course?

It is a very fast paced environment for those who want a career change quickly. If you're trying to socialize, if you're just trying to breeze through a program to get a job quick, if you're just trying to develop a new hobby, do yourself and your future classmates a favor. Stay home and study through Google, Youtube, Lynda, or an online course.

This program requires a lot of focus, time, dedication, motivation, open-mindedness, and effort. A majority of your classmates WILL be grinding away at school and at home. Living and breathing code because they are dedicated to changing their, and their family's, lives. A handful of students dropped the course. Some due to circumstance, some because they didn't believe they could do it.

I'm very proud to say I finished the course. It was intense. I had to work with 30 people I had never met before and I'm far from gregarious; more of a hermit, really. I learned HTML, CSS, Javascript, TypeScript, C#, Razor, SQL, Git, Firebase, ASP.NET Core 1.1, Ember.js, Angular2, and a few other technologies. All in six months.

Am I a master at any of these things? NO. Nobody in my class is, but plenty of my classmates found their niche with what they enjoyed most in class and are now employed. The job is where you'll master your skills and If you know HOW to program you will be able to find a job.

Speaking of jobs, Epicodus also offers job assistance and internships. I haven't taken advantage of this as it isn't the route I'm going down, but everyone who wanted an internship was placed with a company for a month.

Some of my classmates have even been hired from their internships.

Epicodus is specifically for those who don't know how to program or think like a programmer.

Have you tried to teach yourself and failed? Have you had a desire to learn but haven't had the time to do it?

This program offers your the opportunity to learn, and I guarantee you won't have the time to do it. You'll be scared about dropping your life for six months. If you can dispel the fear, MAKE the time, and put in the work while you're there, I believe that you will find yourself comfortably employed as a developer in a position with plenty of room for growth with a new skillset that is highly valuable.

I am nearing the end of my internship that caps off the 5-month bootcamp at Epicodus in Portland, OR. I have learned more than I thought possible. I have probably already forgotten more than I thought possible! The teachers were uneven, but generally good to great. The curriculum was usually very good, if occasionally a tiny bit behind the industry (they were a little slow to add CSS Grid and ES6). If you take your education seriously at Epicodus and come in with eyes wide open as to how intense/demanding it will be, you will succeed.

Not only was this a fabulous experience, I have also come away from it with 20 great friends. This seems to be common among cohorts. You spend 5 months together, day in, day out, drinking from the firehose, struggling together and you walk away best buds with people you never would have imagined being friends with.

Some takeaways:
-in-person pair programming is the way to go. It is built-in accountability, encouragement, and help. I would not have learned as much if I was doing this on my own, online.
-If you can, don't work during bootcamp. Make bootcamp your life.
-Take the time to polish your projects while they are fresh. You'll thank yourself later.

I'm a recent graduate of Epicodus's C#/.Net program and if you're serious about making a career change and doing this right, then read on.

I was very hesitant to buy into the bootcamp hype. I spent a tremendous amount of time doing research and making sure that I was making the right decision before I decided to apply to Epicodus. Epicodus is unique in the sense that not only are you going to go through a high-intensity program, but you're also going to end up with real on-the-job experience at the end. Not only that, but the program is one of the cheapest around.

What sold me on Epicodus was the fact that they also include an internship portion. This is absolutely the most important part of the program (apart from how you approach it; more on that below). It gives you that real experience that employers are looking for and may (when I say may, I mean don't count on it) lead to a job. It's rare for the internship to lead straight into the company that hires you, but it does happen. In my case, I didn't internship with the company that I was hired by, but they were a part of the internship program and were actively looking for motivated developers.

Epicodus's curriculum is fantastic for the most part. For the tech industry, it's extremely hard to keep up with how fast technology changes, but the instructors do a decent job of keeping the curriculum up to date and also have a good amount of experience troubleshooting through outdated lessons. During our program, Angular had just went through a major overhaul and they had new information up within the week. Similarly, Visual Studio 2017 had come out, and they immediately reacted to this by starting to update the curriculum. You'll be learning the newest and latest tech, which is what companies are looking for.

I had mentioned above that it really depends on your approach this. Epicodus (and honestly ALL bootcamps) need a certain level of real commitment. You can't go into this and 'dabble' around. The curriculum is fast and the concepts are difficult. It's easily the hardest (and definitely most rewarding) experience I've ever had. But I went into it deciding I was going to no-life code for 6 months. Epicodus was perfect for that. You get what you put into it. And to me that means you might as well go with the bootcamp that is cheaper and includes an internship.

That's not to say that if you don't no-life it, you won't learn something. If you're passing your weekly code reviews, then you'll easily come out of this with enough to build on.